Lesson #52 – Size of the Problem = Size of the Leader

–The size of leaders is gauged by the size of the problem they can handle

Develop a culture where those around you solve the problems in front of them, where everyone wants to solve a problem to show how valuable they are.

This is vastly different than the average organization where people avoid problems by taking the it’s-not-my-problem approach. They blame, they pass the buck, and they do anything and everything to avoid it.

That is typical, but you want to be part of an organization that fights over who gets to solve the problem! All people have problems. Not being aware they have problems is perhaps the biggest problem.

The difference between the successful and the average is that the successful people attack their problems– and solve them–one at a time. Average people address the same problems every month, over and over, without fixing anything.

Why do successful people go looking for problems to solve? Because problems create value! If you want to make a lot of money, then solve problems that others can’t or won’t. If you are in real estate and the only houses you can sell are those that everyone else can sell, and you can only sell them to the average buyer, then you will make the same amount of money as everyone else. When you can solve problems like how to sell to clients no one else wants to deal with or how to solve a finance problem others can’t, then you make an inordinate amount of money.

TAKEAWAY!
Problems are a good thing. Problems create value. They are the path to what you want.
Average people have the same problem everyday.
It never changes or goes away. Solve it now.

Action Step #1

Ask your boss to tell you what the biggest problem is. Then explain that you want to try and solve it.

Action Step #2

Write down the ways you are avoiding a certain problem. Now, write down a way of embracing the problem beside every way you avoid it. Then get going!

An Example:
A gentleman named Tom is in a network marketing company. He is a very successful distributor with a large down-line and a solid 6-figure income. He developed a piece of software that would assist in tracking a team’s performance, recruit people automatically, adapt to the usage of products creating a personal profile, and many other things.
It proved to be incredibly effective, but it affected the incomes of others in negative ways.
Without going into the politics or details of the situation, he was threatened with losing his distributorship if he continued to use the system.

This was a serious problem, not only for the loss of income, but because he had spent tens of thousands of dollars developing this software.

Instead of ignoring the problem, he decided to adapt the software for other companies in both his industry and outside his industry. This was not something he ever consciously conceived of doing while developing the product. Initially, it was simply a product to make his job easier. Instead of collapsing in the face of the problem of losing his distributorship or wasting years and money in developing, he rose to the occasion and now has both his lucrative down line and a multi-million dollar software company that is about to go public.

He is a leader who can handle multi-million dollar problems.

“Our team is well balanced-we have problems everywhere”
–Tommy Prothro